Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, to quote an old Moody Blues song, imagine a time when a United States senator would feel compelled to assure the public that he would do everything in his power to assure this country doesn’t invade Greenland?
Well, that’s what it has come to. Having just conquered the sovereign nation of Venezuela, hinting that he intends to remain as the chief cook and bottle washer there for the foreseeable future, President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump is salivating over the prospect of sending troops to Cuba, Mexico, and wherever his shriveled little heart desires, without congressional consent, of course.
Apparently running America just isn’t enough to fill his time between rounds of golf.
Oh, and Greenland, a possession of this nation’s European ally, Denmark, which, for some ridiculous reason, has been a land mass of Trumpian expansion intent for quite some time. On Wednesday, the White House made it clear that Trump has not ruled out military force to gain control of that particular oversized ice cube.
“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the commander in chief’s disposal.”
Trump has, in the past, declared “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
So, prepare for the Battle of Nuuk.
To achieve this goal, Trump will have to go around Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, who has a jaundiced view of our boy’s desire to punch down on weaker nations via gunboat diplomacy.
“It won’t happen under my watch,” Paul said on the news show CBS Mornings. “I will do everything to stop any kind of military takeover of Greenland.”
Paul was joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewisCounty, who cut to the chase by characterizing the use of military force against an ally as “sheer insanity.’’
“ … so any serious mention of it deserves ridicule,” Massie said in a statement initially published in the Lexington Herald-Leader. “Even if it could be purchased, it’s not clear that the benefits of expanding the territory of the United States outweigh the price and inherent liabilities which include increased defense spending and more citizens taking advantage of our already unsustainable social programs. Ultimately Congress would have to thoughtfully vet any proposed deal.”
Frankly, with all due respect to the 57,000 mostly Inuit residents of Greenland, there isn’t a whole lot to recommend the joint. It is basically covered in ice. It’s generally not as cold as you might think at least in some areas because of the gulf stream. In the capital of Nuuk, for instance, the average winter temperature is 16 degrees Fahrenheit. Even so, it’s not like a weekend at the French Riviera, and Trump won’t be building a resort hotel on the Lincoln Sea any time soon.
It’s unlikely to ever become the 51st state regardless of Trump’s intentions. His primary argument for a U.S. takeover is national security. That, somehow, it’s needed as a bulwark against the Chinese and the Russians, an argument that loses steam when you consider, as Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, pointed out, that the U.S. already possesses “sweeping access’’ to much of the land mass because of previous agreements.
In other words, there likely is an ulterior motive to Trump’s Greenland obsession, and that ulterior motive likely centers on the mineral riches that lay beneath that ice sheet – a lode that, as anyone who has observed the Lord of Mar-a-Lago over the years realizes by now, he thinks he can somehow benefit from financially.
According to the BBC, detailed mapping collaborations and explorations carried out over more than a century have uncovered evidence of important mineral resources in Greenland – including rare earth elements and critical minerals used for green energy technologies, as well as suspected fossil fuel reserves.
You can bet that any time the phrase “fossil fuel reserves’’ comes up in a conversation Trump’s ears prick up. And he exhibits a renewed interest in his most recent bank statement.
But the real interest might involve rare earth minerals, which are crucial to the production of batteries, magnets, and other components connected to advanced technologies. China currently is the grand high muckety-muck when it comes to rare earth minerals, accounting for 69 percent of global production and 88 percent of the refinement.
In fact, rare earth minerals forced Trump to back away from his most critical initiative during this presidential term — the imposition of excessive tariffs on Chinese imports. Faced with the potential loss of access to rare earth materials in China’s response, and having no where else to go for the material, Trump relented in an embarrassing fashion. With a veritable gold mine available in Greenland, he’s prepared to send the troops.
There are obvious difficulties, such as questions about environmental impact (an issue Trump could care less about, considering his annihilation of the Environmental Protection Agency), and the cost of finding and recovering the material, endeavors he can devote tax money to achieve and have others perform – after he’s made his own financial investment, of course.
Consider Venezuela. The U.S. under Trump staged “a large-scale strike’’ against that South American nation on Jan. 3 in order to seize and arrest President Nicolas Maduro, who is accused of operating a narco-terrorism regime out of the capital of Caracas. U.S. forces bombed several sites in the military action, resulting in dozens of deaths.
Maduro is now in custody in New York City, but the United States remains in Venezuela and apparently will stay there for some time. Trump has announced that, rather than turn the government over to duly-elected Venezuelan officials, the U.S. will “run” the country for the foreseeable future with a special focus on re-establishing the oil industry.
Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world, amounting to an estimated 303 billion barrels. But production is nearly non-existent because of Maduro’s political shenanigans and a resulting lack of investment. Trump announced on his social media site, Truth Social, that Venezuela will begin providing much of its abundant supplies to the U.S., the value of which is placed at between $1.8 billion and $3 billion.
Maduro’s arrest serves as a cover story to permit the U.S. to bleed Venezuela dry of its oil. The drug-trafficking claims against the Venezuelan government are iffy – it doesn’t produce fentanyl, a major narcotics problem in the U.S. right now, and most of the cocaine it produces heads to Europe, not stateside. That didn’t stop the U.S. military from seizing oil tankers that departed from Venezuelan ports over the last few weeks.
The connection hasn’t escaped the attention of Massie, who characterized the Maduro seizure as “an act of war.’’ Posting on X, Massie claimed the Trump administration “worked with big U.S. oil companies before the attack to line up billions of dollars in capital for developing Venezuela’s oil reserves, yet they couldn’t be bothered to consult Congress.”
“This is about oil and regime change,’’ Massie said in a House floor speech.
Should Trump ultimately give in to the voices in his head and invade Greenland, it would destroy NATO, which includes Denmark as a member. It is perhaps the most successful coalition of allies in world history, yet Trump in the past has expressed distaste for the organization, placing the enterprise in jeopardy.
This is what you get when you elect a corrupt con man President of the United States.
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Written by Bill Straub, a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. Cross-posted from the NKY Tribune.
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